Review: The Poet X (by Elizabeth Acevedo)

My Rating: 5 stars

**After watching (and hearing) Elizabeth Acevedo perform a segment from her book during an author chat after I read the book, I was absolutely blown away!  That performance gave me a new appreciation for this story and so I am changing my rating to 5 stars (from 4.5).**

I’ve never been much of a poetry reader.  Nothing against the form or anything, I just have a difficult time getting into poetry, for some reason. Perhaps it’s because my brain processes poetry and poetic verses differently than it does regular prose and as a result, I often have to exert much more effort in reading/re-reading (usually multiple times) poetry in order to fully grasp its meanings. The experience overall can be exhausting and draining for me, which is why, when it comes to leisure reading, I tend to avoid poetry.  This is also why, despite being an avid reader for most of my life and having read countless books over the decades, I had never read a novel-in-verse before, as I’ve always considered it a form of poetry and would likely struggle with it.  Given the above, I was understandably apprehensive when I found out that the group read for one of my book clubs this month would be renowned slam poet Elizabeth Acevedo’s debut novel-in-verse from 2018, The Poet X.   Even though I had heard so many wonderful things about Acevedo and her works, I didn’t know how I would take to a reading experience that, up to this point, was largely foreign to me. (As if that weren’t enough, this book also falls into the YA category, which I don’t read much nowadays, since I’m not the audience for it).   With all that said, I’m actually more surprised than anyone that I ended up enjoying this one so much more than I expected.

Xiomara Batista is the titular Poet X, a teenager who immigrated with her family from the Dominican Republic and now lives in Harlem with her parents and twin brother Xavier.  As she leaves adolescence and starts to come into her own, Xiomara struggles with trying to make sense of the world and her role in it.  In doing so, Xiomara encounters one obstacle after another – at school, she struggles with fitting in, which became more challenging after her body “started taking up more room than [her] voice” and consequently being the target of either affection from boys or jealous gossip from girls.  At home, Xiomara has a strained relationship with her parents – her father ignores her and her mother, who is fiercely religious, sees Xiomara as nothing but trouble and so enforces strict adherence to the laws of her church as a means of keeping her daughter from straying.  At the same time, Xiomara is also dealing with issues of the heart, as she starts to develop feelings for a boy in her biology class and becomes confused at the conflicting emotions raging with her.  Xiomara has a lot she wants to say, but feeling unheard, she has no choice but to pour all her frustrations into the pages of her notebook, in the form of poems that become a salve for her soul.  Through these poems, Xiomara is able to articulate every thought, feeling, desire, that she does not dare express out loud to a world that refuses to listen.  When she is invited to join her school’s slam poetry club, Xiomara is deeply conflicted, as she doesn’t know how she could ever speak the words from her notebook out loud, plus her mother would never let her attend anyway. With some encouragement along the way, Xiomara finally takes a step toward performing her poems, but the implications are severe, especially the visceral reaction from her mother, which threatens to destroy everything, including the little bit of self-worth she had worked so hard to gain.

Xiomara is one of those wonderfully drawn characters who, once you meet her, is very hard for you to forget her.  This is especially true when you have such a talented author as Elizabeth Acevedo at the helm, with her lyrical, poetic words beautifully giving voice to Xiomara, but in a way that is completely accessible, which I love.  For my first time reading a novel-in-verse, I’m so glad I got to start with Acevedo’s work!  Instead of struggling with this as I usually would if I were reading traditional poetry, I actually flew through this and finished in one sitting – though I did feel a bit sad afterwards because I was so immersed in the story and didn’t want it to end.

Overall, this was a different experience for me, but an absolutely incredible one. If, like me, you are looking to try a novel-in-verse for the first time, I highly recommend this immensely moving, heartfelt coming of age tale that is beautifully told in a powerful and unforgettable voice.  Acevedo’s talent definitely shines through and now I can’t wait to read her two subsequent works (also novels-in-verse), With the Fire on High (which came out in 2019) and her newest release Clap When You Land (which came out in May of this year) as well as whatever she decides to write next of course!

Review: To Tell You the Truth (by Gilly Macmillan)

My Rating:  2.5 stars

In comparisons to August (during which time I surprised myself by reading a record 7 books in a month!), September is shaping up to be a slower reading month for me.  The past 2 weeks were unexpectedly busy and I had a few things going on that occupied my time.  I'm back into my regular reading schedule now though and have a few books lined up already so hopefully nothing else comes up between now and end of the month so I can use this last week and a half to "make up for lost time" where my reading is concerned. 

During this time period, the one book I was able to finish was Gilly Macmillan's latest psychological thriller To Tell You the Truth (scheduled for release 9/22).  Initially, I was excited going into this one, as the previous work of this author's that I'd read (I Know You Know from 2018), I had really enjoyed, so I was thinking this would be in the same vein.  It turns out I was completely wrong, and not in a good way either.  With this newest work, I actually came out of it confused, disappointed, and super annoyed — obviously a way different reaction from previous.  The main reason for my annoyance were the characters, all of whom were despicable and hugely unlikable, which, for me, isn't usually a problem as long as the rest of the story is done well — unfortunately, I can't say that was the case here.  I'll get into the issues I had with the story and plot later. First though, the characters...

One of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to psychological thrillers / suspense novels with an adult female protagonist at the center of the story is for her to be written in such a way that she comes across as wishy-washy, overly emotional, incapable of thinking rationally, lacking any sense of self-preservation and common sense, etc.  This is usually portrayed through the protagonist deciding to still go forward with things that she has already determined (through an inner dialogue with herself via first person narrative) are bad or will result in negative consequences — basically, the dialogue goes along the lines of "I knew I shouldn't, but I went along with it anyway" or "I should tell him no but the word yes comes out of my mouth instead".  The frustrating part is that the protagonist nonsensically makes these kinds of bad decisions repeatedly throughout the story and therefore keeps getting herself in predicaments that are entirely preventable.  Even if the protagonist is only like this for part of the story and they seem to "wisen up" somewhat later on, it still taints the entire story for me.

Unfortunately for me, the main protagonist of To Tell You the Truth, Lucy Harper, is exactly this type of character. In a way, it made me mad the way she was portrayed, since technically, the characterization could've gone several ways.  Lucy is a best-selling author who is supposedly smart and talented as heck and who has enjoyed a decades-long career writing multiple books that sold millions, but when she's not writing, she's basically walking around in a fog most of the time, willfully oblivious to anything that happens where her husband Daniel is concerned.  For example, Daniel uses Lucy's money to buy a million dollar mansion, puts only his own name on the deed, swiftly gives notice on the place where they are currently living so that they are forced to move within only a few days, etc. (yes, there is more, I just didn't list it all).  Here's the catch though: he does all this behind Lucy's back without discussing it with her.  What's worse is that the mansion is located just down the street from where Lucy lived as a child — a place that Lucy never wanted to go back to because of what had happened to her brother Teddy 30 years ago (Daniel has full knowledge of this and also knows full well the impact that Teddy's disappearance had on her).  When Daniel casually springs the sale of the house and the move, etc. on Lucy as though it's something perfectly normal that a doting husband does for his wife and she would be a fool not to go along with it, Lucy is supposedly angry (at least that's what she tells herself), but instead of making her disdain and objections known or confronting him about it or calling out his obvious selfishness, she just stands idly by and let's him do what he wants.  Even though she is seething inside and pissed off and can already see the train wreck waiting to happen financially (we know all this because the narrative is in first person), her actions speak otherwise, as she chooses the "naive, docile wife" route and basically ignores all the red flags starring her in the face.  It's also maddening that at various points in the story, it is inferred that Lucy's behavior is a result of her being psychotic or paranoid or whatnot and that she is not "right in the head."  To me, the entire characterization felt too stereotypical and convenient (not to mention downright annoying and frustrating).  I think it's interesting that this is the third psychological thriller / suspense novel I've read so far this year with this type of protagonist — either this is starting to become a trend now with this genre for some reason or I'm having incredibly bad luck with choosing the wrong thrillers to read.  

To make matters worse, Lucy actually wasn't the only annoying character.  I already mentioned earlier that nearly all the characters were unlikable — Daniel was obviously a douchebag, all of Lucy's neighbors were hateful people, and most of the other characters were either incompetent or insignificant in terms of the story.  All of them were honestly really frustrating to read about — which brings me to the issues I had with the execution of the story.  I don't want to go too much into the plot, as I don't want to give the story away, but there were quite a few plot holes involving some of the characters that honestly didn't make much sense and in the end, were left unresolved.  It was to the point where it made me wonder why those scenes with those characters were included in the first place.  The other thing I didn't like was that the last third of the story felt like a rushed exercise in "plot dumping" — essentially the plot details were dumped on the reader in swift succession, one right after the other, but some of it didn't make sense based on the progression of the story up to that point.  I also felt like some of the threads were left hanging in that some significant detail would get cryptically brought up in a scene that points to the thread going in a certain direction, but then the story ends without any reference back to it.  When I read mystery / thriller / suspense novels, I of course don't expect a straightforward, easy-to-figure-out ending delivered nicely in a box with a pretty bow on top (in fact, the opposite is true in that there should be some twists and turns and the plot should be unpredictable).  With that said though, one thing I do expect is closure, especially with the main story arc, which I didn't feel that I got in this instance (I don't want to say more — those who read the book will probably understand what I'm referring to).  

With all that said, this one wasn't all bad.  Parts of it truly were intriguing, plus I actually didn't guess the ending or what happened to Daniel, so I guess from a thriller perspective, it did its job.  The premise also had a lot of potential — I think Gilly Macmillan had the right idea, it's just she tried to cover too much ground and the story ended up getting away from her.  From her past works, I know she is capable of writing a cleverly crafted, compelling thriller with interesting and complicated characters — unfortunately, this one isn't it.  Despite the not-so-good experience with this one, I'm still interested in reading other works by this author, especially since I did have a good experience with her previous work.   Hopefully her next one will work out better for me.

Received ARC from William Morrow (HarperCollins) via NetGalley.

Review: Don't Look For Me (by Wendy Walker)

My Rating: 4 stars

This is the third of Wendy Walker’s psychological thrillers that I’ve read and I feel like with each book, the way she crafts her stories gets better and better.  Oftentimes with this genre, it can be quite difficult to come up with a fresh story that doesn’t feel like it’s been done before, but with her books, Walker consistently manages to come up with a story that is not only unique, but also creative as well as intricately plotted.  What also stands out with her works is that there is substance to the story in the form of specific issues that are being grappled with in society or sometimes a moral dilemma that there is usually no resolution for.  A lot of thrillers simply entertain and end up being forgettable afterwards – but Walker’s books (the 3 I’ve read so far at least) all ended up giving me “food for thought” on certain issues, which is actually what I hope to get from all my reading experiences.

This time around, with Don’t Look For Me, Walker presents us with another strong but flawed female protagonist in Molly Clarke, whose family is still shattered by a tragedy that occurred 5 years ago.  After a particularly devastating argument with her eldest daughter Nichole, Molly decides to make the 4 hour drive across town to visit her son Evan at his school.  On her way home, she is caught in the middle of a storm with her car dangerously low on gas.  Hours later, her car would be found abandoned by the side of the road, with her cell phone left in the charging dock.  A few days later, a note would be found at a nearby hotel – a note signed by Molly, containing an apology to her family and requesting that they don’t look for her.  Based on this, the case is closed, with the assumption that Molly decided to “walk away” from the aftermath of a tragedy that made her life no longer worth living.  All efforts to find her are stopped and her family is advised that this type of thing happens all the time, and that they should find a way to move on with their lives.  But did Molly Clarke really just “walk away” to start a new life, not wanting to be found?  Or is there something more sinister at play?  

Through an alternating timeline -- starting with Molly on the day she disappeared, then 2 weeks later from her daughter Nichole’s perspective – the premise drew me in from the getgo and from there, I found this one hard to put down.  Of course, I don’t want to say too much, since the rule of thumb is always to go into these suspense / thriller novels knowing as little as possible.  With that in mind, this review will be deliberately brief and vague.  One thing I do want to mention is that this story was definitely well-plotted and suspenseful, but in more of a “slow-burn” rather than “action-packed” manner (though this didn’t prevent me from wanting to turn the pages and find out what was coming next).  Also, unlike many of the suspense / thrillers I’ve read lately, this one actually kept me guessing from beginning to end, which meant I wasn’t able to figure out the culprit or how things would pan out in the end – definitely a good thing, since a thriller that is “easy to figure out” takes all the “fun” out of reading it.  With all that said though, while the “big reveal” at the end was definitely surprising and not at all what I thought it would be, it wasn’t the “jaw-dropping, shocking twist” type of reveal that I had been expecting – in fact, it actually felt a bit anti-climactic for some reason, at least to me.  Regardless though, this was still overall a great read.  Wendy Walker is absolutely on my short list of “go-to” authors now in terms of psychological thrillers and I look forward to seeing what she has in store for us next.  Meanwhile though, I need to find time to squeeze in her backlist books at some point – hopefully sooner rather than later.

Received ARC from St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley.

 

 

Review: Eat a Peach (by David Chang)

 My Rating: 4.5 stars



Let me start off this review with a full disclosure:  prior to deciding to read this book, I had never heard of David Chang or Momofuku.  I know it's probably hard to believe, especially since there is a Momofuku restaurant in Los Angeles (though to my defense, it's in the downtown area, which is far from where I actually live) and from what I understand (after the fact, of course), Chang is "prolific" enough to have his own Netflix show, podcast, as well a bestselling cookbook (which means he is not some unknown chef who spends his time holed up in the kitchen), so it's not like there aren't plenty of opportunities to have heard of him.   In all honesty, I chalk up my ignorance to the fact that I'm not a "foodie" (I love food, but I'm definitely not the "food connoisseur" type), plus I don't like to cook so there's not a whole lot of reason for me to pay too much attention to the food world here.   So the big question then is how did I hear about this memoir and why would I want to read it in the first place?   Well, the answer is a bit complicated.  I first heard about Chang's memoir on a podcast that I was listening to, then later on, coincidentally, I came across an article about Chang that talked about the "rarity" of his success as a chef (and now media personality as well) of East Asian (Korean) descent who was able to "make it big" in the American culinary world.   Being of East Asian descent myself (Chinese), this naturally piqued my interest, and so despite not having much clue beforehand who David Chang is and even less idea of what goes on in the culinary world, I decided to pick this memoir up anyway and go with it.

 

In this memoir, through the "war stories" he tells about his experiences coming up the ranks as a chef and then later, a restaurant mogul, David Chang gives us a candid, fascinating glimpse into the culinary world.  What I appreciated most though was the way he presented the culinary industry – and his place in it -- with an intensity and raw honesty that I wasn't really expecting.  On the one hand, he talks about the rewarding satisfaction of creating something that others enjoy, even admire, and why some people would be attracted to the world he inhabits, but on the other hand, he also presents the harsh realities of his world (the grueling hours, the constant stress and pressure, the physical and mental exhaustion, the emotional toll that the often fast-paced and sometimes toxic environment can have on you, etc. ) and why it's not a profession that everyone is cut out for.  In one of my favorite sections of the book,  the chapter at the end where Chang outlines 33 Rules for Becoming a Chef, he starts off by saying : "For those who became chefs because they HAD to, it's crazy that anybody with other options would WANT to work in restaurants" – then subsequently lays out point by point what to expect, in a way that, by the time you get to the end, you get the feeling that being a chef is one of the worst jobs you can possibly choose.  

 

In addition to his candid take on the culinary / restaurant industry however, Chang is also honest about his personal struggles and shortcomings.  He talks openly about his anger issues, about his battle with depression that essentially pushed him to open Momofuku in the first place, about how he still struggles with suicidal thoughts, about how he sees a therapist on a consistent basis and oftentimes relies on medication to function.  He's also resigned to the fact that these issues will likely continue to follow him the rest of his life, yet he refuses to let that stop him from continuing to do what he loves.  What makes this revelation a big deal is the fact that he comes from a culture where mental illness is an uncomfortable topic that is not usually discussed publicly (it's very seldom acknowledged or talked about within the family unit either).   This part of Chang's story, as well as when he talks about his family background, resonated the most for me on a personal level.  A lot of what he experienced and struggled with as a second generation Asian-American (whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from an East Asian territory) were definitely familiar, as I've encountered much of the same as well in my childhood (the same can probably be said of most Asian kids who grew up in immigrant households).  The cultural influences relevant to the family environment he grew up in, the nuances of his relationship with his parents and siblings, the racial discrimination he encountered at school and elsewhere, the struggle with his own identity and never really feeling that he fit in anywhere (he refers to himself as a "twinkie" – yellow on the outside, white on the inside – hence, rejected by white kids because his face is "too Asian" while at the same time rejected by the Asian kids because everything else about him is "too white") – these were all things that he struggled with growing up, though the hardest part is actually having to reconcile all of it physically, mentally, and emotionally as an adult.  Ironically, in Chang's case, he ended up choosing a career that exacerbated these issues rather than alleviate them.   Summarizing these childhood experiences in one of the earlier chapters of his book, Chang writes:  "This all leads me to question whether kitchen custom created my personal brand of rage.  I think the job – the fear, the stress, the habits I'd learned, the culture – unlocked what was already roiling inside me."

 

What is interesting to note is that Chang's struggle with his own identity and cultural background is reflected in his restaurants.  As with many Asian cultures, when it comes to food, there is a "traditionalist" sentiment that dictates what can and can't be done with certain dishes, especially ones that are culturally significant.  Chang put it best when he described a meal he attended put on by  a Korean chef living in Japan who came up with a celery kimchi dish:  "I began to understand that what holds us back from culinary progress is often some cultural roadblock that we honor in the name of preservation – the kind of arbitrary roadblock that says, You're not supposed to do that with kimchi."  This cultural sentiment played a huge role growing up too, as Chang also wrote about the overwhelming need to blend in as kids, which basically meant hiding the "traditional" foods that he would normally eat at home from his white classmates out of shame and also fear of being further made fun of and teased.  All of these experiences made it difficult for Chang to completely embrace his Korean heritage and for many years, with his restaurants, he worked to bury "any sign of Koreanness under other influences and disguises" – for example, all of his restaurants have Japanese names rather than Korean, and up until he opened Majordomo in Los Angeles, he avoided having Korean dishes on the menu (even with Majordomo, there is actually no "traditional" Korean food on the menu , but many of the dishes do have Korean influences, as does the design of the restaurant itself).  This is also one of the things that makes the Momofuku enterprise unique, as it doesn't identify with any one particular culture – rather, it's an eclectic mix of influences from various cultures (Chang said that whenever he is cornered for an answer on what type of cuisine his restaurant should be categorized as, his number one response is usually "American").

 

Even though I can be quite picky when it comes to memoirs, over the years, I've read my fair share of both really good ones and really bad ones.  David Chang's Eat A Peach definitely falls under the "really good" category and is a memoir that I absolutely recommend.  For those who are interested in joining the culinary industry, this is an insightful read, especially the last section 33 Rules for Becoming a Chef – the advice that Chang gives in this section is invaluable!  For those who, like me, aren't really interested in the culinary world, but just want to read a well-written, fascinating memoir  about a person whose experiences are relatable and resonant, even for someone coming from completely different backgrounds, this is definitely a great choice.  Reading this memoir actually spurred me to research Momofuku online so I could learn more about it.  Oh and I now have Majordomo on my bucket list of restaurants that I would like to visit and eat at some day (once this whole pandemic thing is over of course)!

 

 Received ARC from Clarkson Potter via NetGalley